blasé

There were times when eating out at a fancy restaurant was something special for me, a treat.

When you've lunched at some of Vienna's best restaurants 4 days a week on average for the past 5 months, you realise that the whole idea of eating out has lost a lot of its shine.

I could of course always go back to my staple rucola diet and spend my lunch-hour shopping, but unlike clothes and handbags, I can expense my lunches and the side effect that a proper lunch saves me the trouble of cooking dinner is not an entirely unwelcome one either. My fridge has become a neon-lit museum, exhibiting solitary yoghurts and probiotic drinks.

I know, I know - the issues of, say, global warming and stock market losses pale in comparison with the problems of Ladies who Lunch.